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Sunday, January 6, 2013

Hope everyone had a wonderfully Merry Christmas! Ours was so busy it passed by even faster than usual. We had 4 Christmas get together's with different family members from Dec 23rd - Dec 25th and then 3 more up north the weekend before New Years. And I was frantically finishing up Christmas projects almost right up to each gathering!

Christmas 2011 I did a few handmade gifts but (huge fail) I didn't take a single picture. Ooops. This year I did slightly better and got almost everything!

Here it all is...

I actually made three variations of this necklace. (see still slacking in the picture department!)

I have been LONGING to do a quiet book. I started a felt doll dress up quiet book last year before Christmas but I got stuck on it and never finished. This mini quiet book was sort of a last minute decision that I busted out in two evenings. I can hardly wait to make more. It was fun and I think it's cute. And it was a total stash project. I did not buy a single thing for this, it was all on hand from the ring I used to bind it to the lightweight vinyl for the photo page!

I have been planning a superhero project for my nephew for Christmas for months. For my little guy for Halloween I made him into a superhero... his name is Hunter and he had a green camo cape with matching mask. He was a "Super Hunter." His cousin T thought it was cool so I made him his own superhero outfit for dress up. It's reversible so it's extra fun!

These were another last minute decision. I had been browsing Pinterest and saw some t-shirt "rope" infinity scarves. Shortly after I was working with some fleece remnants I had picked up and noticed that this particular kind of fleece curled very similar to the t-shirt material used in the scarves I saw. I sewed one up and loved it. I ended up making a total of 3 for gifts (the third one not shown was the blue and a a dark brown with no buttons) and I have strips cut to make one for myself... someday!

You may have read my fabric labels post... We gave out about half a dozen rosemary olive oils with homemade artisan bread and about twice as many vanilla's with a homemade brownie mix. All pinterest inspired. As a matter of fact, after all my pinterest inspired Christmas crafts, my dear husband decided pinterest was quite possibly useful and now he has an account AND he has used it! :)

Love those DIY snow globes I've seen. The person I made this for was my boss at work. I actually made one the week before Christmas and was putting a finishing touch on it the night before our last day of work and yep, you guessed it, I broke it. So she had to wait for this part of her present until this past Wednesday since it took some time to dry and she was off between Christmas and New Years. I actually like this second version better as I thought to use a mirrored candle plate instead of cutting cardboard and trying to perfectly glue it inside.

Dear Husband's dad can be hard to shop for, and after hearing his tally of DS games which we often buy him or get him gift certificates for (25!) and not getting any helpful hints from him or significant other I decided to make them travel pillows as they do a fair amount of travel. I actually bought DH one for Christmas so I could use it as a pattern. They didn't turn out too bad for a first time project by a novice sewer just loosely tracing out the pillow for a patter. :) I made removable covers so they could wash the covers. I made a third one of these for my almost 16 year old cousin who will be traveling to Italy this spring with a class from school. The third one turned out even better.

Handmade gifts are time consuming, often stressful (especially if you are a procrastinator like me!) and sometimes a little nerve wracking in this day and age of gift receipts. But they are also fun and satisfying. It's very satisfying to put so much thought and love into a gift for someone. Hopefully everyone who received one of our handmade gifts will enjoy it!